LAIE, Hawaii — The Most Reverend Clarence “Larry” Silva, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, presented the Polynesian Cultural Center and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hawaii with a special Certificate of Appreciation on May 7, 2010, “in gratitude for the collaboration” of Jonathan Napela and St. Damien of Molokai, for their service to Hansen’s Disease patients at Kalaupapa in the 1870s.

Bishop Silva explained that though the two men belonged to different churches, they worked closely together at the isolated Kalaupapa leprosy or Hansen’s Disease quarantine settlement, and the Catholic priest once described N?pela as his “yoke-mate.” Largely for his work there from 1873-1889, Pope Benedict XVI enrolled Father Damien in the canon of Roman Catholic Saints on October 11, 2009, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Here are a couple of samples:

[By Mike Foley: Originally published in KALEO, September 25, 1997] Ahi Logan’s [pictured on left] family roots run deep in Hawaii. Names like Kuakaha, Kawaiopua, Kaleohano, Nainoa and Lokona Kalili have great meaning to him, his family and the community. These are names of just a few of his ancestors. Logan can trace his family […]

[Story by Mike Foley: Originally published in the online BYU-Hawaii Newsroom, January 21, 2008] One of the foremost international experts on Pluvialis fulva — the Pacific Golden-Plover — has spent the past two weeks at BYU-Hawaii helping faculty and students, as well as state and federal researchers, net and band specimens of the unique long-distance […]

[kaltura-widget wid=”pf1nayny6o” width=”410″ height=”364″ addpermission=”3″ editpermission=”3″ align=”center” /] Most of my regulars know I’m a writer and photographer, but you may not realize I have also been very interested in digital video for the past nine years . . . so from time to time I would also like to share some of my video […]

We don’t get it naturally here in Hawaii, as far as I know, but I recently saw a post on one of the popular social media websites reminding me that for some of our South Pacific island cousins, this is the season of “Polynesian caviar” — palolo.

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